Jo Fairley and Sarah Stacey take you behind the scenes of the beauty industry: the launches, the pros we meet - and all our latest beauty 'finds'

Sunday, 2 January 2011

Spa-watch: Sousse, Tunisia

Beauty Bible wishes you a Happy New Year - with news of a new spa. So: Jo escaped the snow, ice and the need for Uniqlo HeatTech underwear by heading for Tunisia for Christmas - and stumbled upon a real 'find'. Opened just a couple of months ago, we think the spa at the Mövenpick Hotel in Sousse will soon start to feature in all the 'Best of...' guides. With a thriving hamman culture in Tunisia, therapists take their work seriously. And with the Mövenpick (don't be put off just because it's also the name of an ice cream/coffee brand) being probably the glitziest hotel on the map in Tunisia, it probably shouldn't have come as a surprise to experience truly world-class treatments. The Thalgo spa features - of course - a hot hammam room, plus a really bath-temperature-esque salt-water pool (both indoors and out, see above), several other swimming pools, a fully-equipped gym with sea views and a stupendous menu of treatments.
Jo went for the basics, generally - facial massage, Swedish massage, and some impeccable O.P.I. pampering for her extremities. (One particular therapist - Omsa - deserves a mention in dispatches.) The hotel itself has fantastic beds (= fantasic sleep), is right on a white sand beach - and a 5-minute taxi ride from Sousse's colourful medina, with perfume and soap shops for the beauty-hound to explore. Oh, and there's a Japanese restaurant and massive salad bar, so you could make it a low-cal spa escape if you felt so inclined (and managed to blinker yourself from the dessert buffet). Jo loved every indulgent moment. And to paraphrase The Terminator, she'll be back.